The Doha Marathon
By PASCAL LAMY
November 3, 2006; Page A10
GENEVA -- There comes a time in every negotiation where the prospect of failure looms. For the Doha round of global trade negotiations, that time has nearly arrived. The costs -- economic, systemic, political -- of such a failure are acknowledged by politicians, business leaders and members of civil society. Yet the negotiations remain stalled, as they have been since July.
The World Trade Organization and the global trading system which it oversees may not dissolve overnight if the Doha round fails. But a failure to reach agreement is like an insurance policy not taken, or an investment not made. Insurance and investments are not free, but saving a bit in the short term often means paying much more down the line. Like a progressive malady, a failure in the global trade talks will erode the multilateral trading system that has underpinned the global economy for nearly 60 years.
The WTO rule book is more than 10 years old. Some of its rules are no longer relevant, some new ones are needed and some continue to be clearly inequitable, particularly for developing countries. These countries, which need new trade rules and more market access for their exports, risk becoming less stable if the system can't deliver.
Today the problem is agriculture. Representing less than 8% of world trade and less than 5% of employment in industrial countries, agriculture is the Gordian knot that has tied up negotiations in services, industrial goods and better trading rules. Reforming agriculture is politically difficult because it will bring pain to some. But what is being asked of governments amounts to further cuts of only a few billion dollars of trade-distorting farm subsidies and a further reduction of only a few more percentage points in the average tariffs now applied in the industrial and big emerging developing countries. Compare that to what we all stand to gain.
Even by the most conservative measure, what has already been agreed over the last five years surpasses anything agreed on a trade round before. Pledges to cut trade-distorting domestic farm subsidies surpass those made in the last WTO round of trade talks -- the Uruguay round -- by two to three times. Governments have agreed to end the direct export subsidies that have so damaged farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Governments have agreed to use powerful formulas to cut import taxes on farm and industrial goods, ensuring that a Doha round agreement would tear down trade barriers as never before. In services, the largest economies in the world have agreed that they will remove restrictions and create new business opportunities for foreign providers in many sectors including telecommunications, express delivery, banking, insurance and computer services.
Environmentally harmful fisheries subsidies, which have contributed significantly to the depletion of global fish stocks, would be cut for the first time ever. Trade and environment policies, so inadequately coordinated in the past, would be made coherent. New rules would be created to streamline customs procedures, slash red tape and curb corruption.
The "time out" in the multilateral trade talks has already led many governments to consider bilateral or regional accords. These deals offer much less than a global pact. They do not address systemic issues like farm or fishery subsidies, antidumping or trade facilitation procedures. They create a myriad of different rules and procedures which mean higher administrative costs for entrepreneurs.
An end to the Doha round would also bring great comfort to those promoting a protectionist agenda, because the WTO is the greatest insurance policy against trade conflicts. Remember the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, which led the U.S. to quadruple its tariffs on imported goods. Governments in Europe and elsewhere retaliated against U.S. exports, and the results were devastating. U.S. unemployment rose to 25% in 1933 from 9% in 1930. Exports fell by 60%; imports fell by two-thirds. The aggressive use of sanctions gave rise to the economic nationalism that was among the factors leading to World War II. Such were the ramifications of this ill-advised economic policy that, as part of the postwar global architecture that included the United Nations, governments decided to create a nondiscriminatory world trading system which would progressively reduce trade barriers. The strengthening of this system, which ensured that trade would be conducted by the rule of law rather than the law of the jungle, is now at stake.
We have only a few months to rescue these negotiations. The U.S. Congress will consider two pieces of legislation that will have profound consequences on the Doha talks -- a new farm bill and a bill to extend or renew the trade negotiating authority that Congress extends to President Bush. By the early spring, negotiators in Geneva must advance the negotiations sufficiently to inspire Congress to pass laws which support the talks. A new farm bill that leads America's trading partners to conclude Washington is not serious about agriculture reform would be seriously detrimental to the export interests of millions of U.S. farmers, but also to the round. Failure to extend the president's ability to negotiate with those partners would be fatal to it.
The responsibility to be flexible and seek compromise is not Washington's alone. Other major players -- Europe, India, China, Brazil and Japan -- must move too. But time is short and the stakes are high. We are like a group of marathon runners that have run 25 miles and now must go the extra mile. That last mile is often the toughest, but after you've run 25 miles why abandon the race? If we don't act now, we will rue the day we missed this chance.
Mr. Lamy is director-general of the WTO.
莫使多哈回合谈判功亏一篑
2006年11月03日12:09英 | 大 | 中 | 小
帕斯卡尔?拉米
所有谈判都可能会经历山穷水尽疑无路的时刻。对多哈回合全球贸易谈判而言，这一时刻已接近到来。对于谈判失败将付出的经济、体制和政治代价，政治家、商界领袖和文明社会的有识之士们都心知肚明。但自今年7月以来，这一谈判一直止步不前。
虽然多哈回合谈判失败可能不会导致世界贸易组织(WTO)及其监管的全球贸易体系立即解体，但此回合谈判未能达成协议就好比没购买保险或未进行投资。虽然买保险和作投资都要花钱，但在这方面省小钱往往意味着今后要赔大钱。就像养痈成患一样，全球贸易谈判失败将使支撑世界经济近60年的多边贸易体系一步步被侵蚀掉。
多哈相关报导
? 多哈回合谈判再次破裂
? 多哈回合悬了！
? 陷入僵局的多哈回合
? 多哈回合谈判最终协议难产
WTO的现行规则都是十多年前制定的。其中一些已显过时；一些新内容有待补充进去；而一些规定显然仍有失公平──尤其对发展中国家而言。如果目前的多边贸易体系无法制定出新的贸易规则来扩大发展中国家在出口方面的市场准入，那么这些国家的社会稳定将受到威胁。
本轮全球贸易谈判卡在了农业问题上。虽然农产品贸易额不足全球贸易总额的8%，工业化国家的农业人口不及总人口的5%，但农业问题却成了使服务业、工业品和贸易规则谈判止步不前的“哥帝安之结”。农业改革是一件有政治难度的事，因为一些人将因此承受痛苦。但它要求各国政府做的只不过是将其对贸易造成扭曲的农业补贴削减几十亿美元，将工业化国家和主要新兴市场国家的平均关税再降低几个百分点。而其结果却是全世界所有的人都能从中受益。
即使以最保守的标准来衡量，多哈回合谈判在过去5年中所取得的成果也要多于以往任何一轮全球贸易谈判。各国在本轮谈判中所承诺的农业补贴减让幅度是此前一轮乌拉圭回合全球贸易谈判的二到三倍。各国政府已同意终止对非洲、亚洲和拉美农民造成莫大损害的直接出口补贴。各国政府还同意大力降低农产品和工业品的进口关税，以确保多哈回合协议在减少贸易壁垒方面取得前所未有的成功。服务业方面，全球最大的几个经济体已同意在电信、快递、银行、保险和电脑服务等众多领域取消限制措施，为外国公司创造更多商业机会。
会对环境造成损害的渔业补贴将首次被削减，这一补贴应为全球鱼类资源的减少负很大责任。以往缺乏协调性的贸易和环境政策此次也将更加统一。新的贸易规则还将简化通关程序，减少审批手续并能遏制腐败。
多边贸易谈判陷入停顿已导致许多国家考虑签署双边或地区性贸易协议。但这类协议所带来的好处要远远少于全球贸易协定。它们无法解决农业和渔业补贴、反倾销和简化贸易程序等体制性问题。它们只会产生各种纷繁复杂的法规和手续，从而增加企业家的管理成本。
多哈回合谈判失败还会使贸易保护主义者感到快慰，因为WTO是防范贸易冲突的最大保单。请不要忘记1930年通过的史慕特-郝雷法(Smoot-Hawley Act)，它导致美国将进口产品关税提高了三倍。而欧洲等地的国家也对美国出口产品还以颜色，这最终造成了灾难性后果。美国的失业率从1930年的9%飙升至1933年的25%。出口下降了60%；进口则减少了三分之二。对制裁措施的过分使用引发了经济民族主义，而这一思潮则是第二次世界大战爆发的诱因之一。鉴于错误的经济政策所导致的这些严重后果，各国政府在二战后重新设计世界政治、经济体制时决定创建一个非歧视性的全球贸易体系，在这一体系下贸易壁垒将逐步减少。这个贸易体系将确保全球贸易依照法治原则而非丛林法则进行，但该体系的发展目前却受到了威胁。
要拯救多哈回合谈判我们只剩下几个月时间了。美国国会目前正在考虑的两项立法将对多哈回合谈判产生深远影响──一项是新的农业法，另一项是延长或者重新授予国会给予布什总统的贸易谈判权。汇聚在日内瓦的各国贸易代表必须在明年初春以前取得足够多的谈判成果，这样才能促使美国国会通过支持全球贸易谈判的法律。而如果美国的新农业法使其贸易伙伴国认为美国并不打算真的进行农业改革，那么受到损害的将不仅仅是美国数百万农民的出口利益，还有多哈回合谈判本身。而拒绝延长总统的贸易谈判权也将对多哈回合谈判造成致命打击。
有责任在谈判中采取灵活态度并寻求达成妥协的并非只有华盛顿。其他主要贸易谈判方──欧洲、印度、中国、巴西和日本也必须行动起来。现在已进入最后冲刺阶段。我们就像一群已跑了25英里的马拉松选手，必须跑完那最后1英里。最后这1英里常常是最难坚持的，但既然已经跑了25英里了，为什么要放弃比赛呢？如果现在不行动，我们总有一天要后悔的。
（编者按：本文作者帕斯卡尔?拉米(Pascal Lamy)是世界贸易组织总干事。）
